Irish home loans in arrears for more than 90 days rose to 9.2 percent at the end of last year from 8.1 percent at the end of the third quarter, according to the country’s central bank.

A total of 107,708 home mortgages, or 14 percent of the total, were either 90 days in arrears or had been restructured and were performing at the end of December, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement today.

Lending fell by 3.3 percent in December from a year before, the biggest drop since Bank of Spain records started half a century ago, the regulator said on its website today. Bad loans as a proportion of total loans rose to 7.61 percent from 7.52 percent in November as borrowing considered “doubtful” jumped to 136 billion euros ($179 billion) from about 11 billion euros five years ago, before Spain’s property crash.

The prospect of a protracted recession in Spain is curbing the appetite for loans and making banks more cautious about lending. The economy may shrink 1.5 percent this year, according to central bank forecasts, while unemployment stands at 23 percent. Exane BNP Paribas predicts an economic contraction could stretch through 2013.

Banks piled up apartments and building land on their balance sheets as loans to property developers and mortgage borrowers soured during the crash. The government is talking to banks to try to reduce the number of people evicted from their homes for failing to pay their mortgages, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said in an interview with state radio RNE late yesterday.

Deposits gathered by Spanish lenders declined 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Bank of Spain said. Deposits increased 0.5 percent from November, the regulator said.

At some point, I suggest now, Japan needs to stop blaming the earthquake and tsunami for its collapse in exports. Furthermore, Japan is going to have difficulty financing its debt unless its turns the situation around quickly.

Japan posted its biggest ever trade deficit in January, topping the previous record seen during the financial crisis in 2009, Ministry of Finance data showed On Monday, underlining concerns that a persistent trade gap may undermine the country's ability to finance its debt.